William Collins

William Collins (8 September 1788, London – 17 February 1847, London) was an English landscape and genre painter. His sentimental paintings of poor people enjoying nature became a posthumous high fashion, notably in the 1870s when his market price rose higher than Constable (Cromer Sands, £3780, 1872) and stayed so until 1894. Turner, his model, far exceeded him in value (The Grand Canal, Venice, sold to Vanderbilt in 1885 for £20,000).

Life and work

Embodying features of tonalism long before the movement's rise in popularity, Children on the Beach was painted c. 1815–1820 and is housed at the Clark Art Institute. Collins was born in Great Titchfield Street, London, son of William Collins Sr., an Irish-born picture-dealer and writer. He showed a great aptitude for art from an early age, and was for a while an informal pupil of George Morland. In 1807, he entered the schools of the Royal Academy (at the same time as William Etty), and exhibited at the Academy for the first time in the same year. In 1817 he visited Paris with Leslie and Washington Allston and painted The Departure of the Diligence from Rouen, and the Scene on the Boulevards (both sold privately) – these were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1818. He also painted several portraits about this time. and A Scene near Subiaco, both exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1839. They were followed in 1840–1841 by two New Testament subjects: Our Saviour with the Doctors in the Temple, and The Two Disciples at Emmaus.

Works Collins exhibited at the Royal Academy every year from 1807 to 1846 (a total of 124 pictures) and showed 45 pictures at the British Institution. His major works are listed in Volume 2 (pp. 341–352) of "Memoirs" (see Bibliography).

Today his works appear in the collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum and Tate Britain in London and at other regional centres.

Gallery